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Pac-12 Baseball Begins 2016 Campaign

IN THE RANKINGS: With the season beginning on Friday, the USA Today/ESPN Top 25 Coaches Preseason Poll has five Pac-12 teams ranked. Oregon State leads the way at No. 8, followed by UCLA at No. 9, California at the No. 12 spot, Oregon is No. 15 and USC is tied for No. 20.

STAR POWER: The Pac-12 had 10 different student-athletes from nine schools garner preseason All-America honors. Oregon and Stanford each two different players honored to lead the way while the rest of the teams just had one honoree.

GOLDEN SPIKES: The USA Baseball Golden Spikes Award Preseason Watch List features 50 amateurs, six of which are student-athletes from six different Pac-12 teams. With six, the Pac-12 has the third-most representatives among all conferences. Now in its 39th year recognizing the top amateur baseball player in the country, seven former Pac-12 baseball players have won the award, most recently pitcher Trevor Bauer of UCLA in 2011.

STOPPER OF THE YEAR: The Pac-12 has eight student-athletes on the NCBWA Stopper of the Year Preseason Watch List, tied for the second-most among all conferences. Washington is the only lone Pac-12 team with more than one student-athlete on the list. The National Collegiate Baseball Writers Association will be presenting the Stopper of the Year Award to the top relief pitcher in Division I baseball for the 12th straight year in 2016. UCLA’s David Berg won the honor two of the last three years.

DRAFT: The league is coming off a 2015 season that saw six teams earn berths to the NCAA Tournament and saw 53 players selected in the Major League Baseball Draft. Arizona State led the way with nine draftees while UCLA and USC each had 8. Twenty-four players were selected in the first 10 rounds and 29 were selected on the final day. Since 1997, the Pac-12 has had at least one player drafted in the first round each season. During that time, the league has garnered 62 first-round picks.

NEW FACES IN THE DUGOUT: On June 8, 2015, Jay Johnson was named head coach at Arizona. In his second and final year at Nevada, Johnson was named the 2015 Mountain West Coach of the Year. He led the team to its first-ever Mountain West Conference championship. They tallied 41 wins on the year, second-most in program history. Johnson replaced Andy Lopez, who retired at the end of the 2015 season after 14 years at the helm. The three-time National Coach of the Year led the Wildcats to two College World Series Appearances and won the title in 2012.

Washington State’s Marty Lees became the 15th head coach in program history. Lees spent the last three seasons as the assistant coach/recruiting coordinator at Oklahoma State and the previous 11 at Oregon State. Lees thrived as Oklahoma State’s recruiting coordinator. The Cowboys’ first class with Lees on board was ranked No. 4 nationally by Baseball America and No. 5 by Collegiate Baseball, and followed that with a 2014 class that was ranked No. 5 by Collegiate Baseball for the second-consecutive year.